Martin Heidegger s 1934 1935 lectures on Friedrich Holderlin s hymns "Germania" and "The Rhine" are considered the most significant among Heidegger s lectures on Holderlin. Coming at a crucial time in his career, the text illustrates Heidegger s turn toward language, art, and poetry while reflecting his despair at his failure to revolutionize the German university and his hope for a more profound revolution through the German language, guided by Holderlin s poetry. These lectures are important for understanding Heidegger s changing relation to politics, his turn toward Nietzsche, his thinking about the German language, and his breakthrough to a new kind of poetic thinking. First published in 1980 as volume 39 of Heidegger s Complete Works, this graceful and rigorous English-language translation will be widely discussed in continental philosophy and literary theory."